The Tunisian external trade under the French protectorate: 1881-1956

Abstract

The process of the administrative modernization had always been  a source of worriness  to the caciques commercial activities in the Tunisian  territorial waters  at the beginning of the modern epoch, and even with the establishment of the French Protectorate .These worries  were principally  due to abuses and violations that marked this process such as fraud methods and the conversions followed by great traders and the means of transport owners, and this, in spite of the successive attempts to restructure or  reorganize this sector. This alarming situation led the supervisors of the commercial affairs to elaborate a safety plan in order to solve the problem of the decrepitude or the collapse that characterized the Mediterranean basin, in particular the tunisian maritime field or domain.

Keywords: Merchant Navy, Marine trade, Trade exchange, Commercial deterrence laws, the administrative customs system.